8. FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

Foreign Currency Contracts

        The Company transacts business in various foreign countries and is therefore, exposed to foreign currency exchange rate risk inherent in forecasted sales, cost of sales, and monetary assets and liabilities denominated in non-functional currencies. The Company has established risk management programs to protect against volatility in the value of non-functional currency denominated monetary assets and liabilities, and of future cash flows caused by changes in foreign currency exchange rates. The Company tries to maintain a partial or fully hedged position for certain transaction exposures, which are primarily, but not limited to, revenues, customer and vendor payments and inter-company balances in currencies other than the functional currency unit of the operating entity. The Company enters into short-term foreign currency forward and swap contracts to hedge only those currency exposures associated with certain assets and liabilities, primarily accounts receivable and accounts payable, and cash flows denominated in non-functional currencies. Gains and losses on the Company's forward and swap contracts are designed to offset losses and gains on the assets, liabilities and transactions hedged, and accordingly, generally do not subject the Company to risk of significant accounting losses. The Company hedges committed exposures and does not engage in speculative transactions. The credit risk of these forward and swap contracts is minimized since the contracts are with large financial institutions and accordingly, fair value adjustments related to the credit risk of the counterparty financial institution were not material.

        As of March 31, 2015, the aggregate notional amount of the Company's outstanding foreign currency forward and swap contracts was $3.6 billion as summarized below:

                                                                                                                                                                                    

        As of March 31, 2015 and 2014, the fair value of the Company's short-term foreign currency contracts was not material and included in other current assets or other current liabilities, as applicable, in the consolidated balance sheets. Certain of these contracts are designed to economically hedge the Company's exposure to monetary assets and liabilities denominated in non-functional currencies and are not accounted for as hedges under the accounting standards. Accordingly, changes in fair value of these instruments are recognized in earnings during the period of change as a component of interest and other, net in the consolidated statements of operations. As of March 31, 2015 and 2014, the Company also has included net deferred losses, in accumulated other comprehensive loss, a component of shareholders' equity in the consolidated balance sheets, relating to changes in fair value of its foreign currency contracts that are accounted for as cash flow hedges. These deferred losses totaled $17.3 million as of March 31, 2015, and are expected to be recognized primarily as a component of cost of sales in the consolidated statement of operations over the next twelve month period. The gains and losses recognized in earnings due to hedge ineffectiveness were not material for all fiscal years presented and are included as a component of interest and other, net in the consolidated statements of operations.

        The following table presents the fair value of the Company's derivative instruments utilized for foreign currency risk management purposes at March 31, 2015 and 2014:

                                                                                                                                                                                    

        The Company has financial instruments subject to master netting arrangements, which provides for the net settlement of all contracts with a single counterparty. The Company does not offset fair value amounts for assets and liabilities recognized for derivative instruments under these arrangements, and as such, the asset and liability balances presented in the table above reflect the gross amounts of derivatives in the consolidated balance sheets. The impact of netting derivative assets and liabilities is not material to the Company's financial position for any of the periods presented.